Chapter 73: Taking a Look at Your Sword
The horse trotted slowly through the dense mountains. It wasn’t moving very fast, as the night path was hard to see clearly. He Yan felt a bit regretful—after finally getting to ride Green Ears, she hadn’t experienced the legendary "crossing mountains and fording rivers as if walking on flat ground."
What a waste.
Starlight and moonlight filtered through the forest canopy, and as He Yan rode, she finally had the leisure to glance at the scenery around her. But one look was enough to make her freeze—not far away lay the body of a wolf, clearly dead.
After a moment of shock, she moved forward a few more steps and found another wolf carcass.
By the time she spotted the third one, He Yan realized this was no coincidence. She swallowed hard and cautiously asked, “Xiao… Commander, did you do all this?”
“If they were in the way, I dealt with them. Otherwise, they’d have followed us the whole way. Too troublesome,” he replied.
He Yan marveled inwardly. Truly, the young general lived up to his reputation—killing without hesitation at the slightest provocation. No wonder they hadn’t encountered any wild wolves along the way—the bold ones must have all been slaughtered by Xiao Jue. She examined the wolf carcasses again—each had been killed with a single, precise strike to the throat, the wounds small and clean.
Her gaze drifted downward, landing on the sword at Xiao Jue’s waist. Everyone knew General Feng Yun possessed both a famed steed and a legendary blade—the horse was Green Ears, and the sword was named Frostbite. Her own Qinglang blade gleamed with a cold light, sharp enough to slice through iron. It was said Frostbite was crystalline throughout, like frost or snow. Now, Frostbite hung at Xiao Jue’s waist, still sheathed, its true form hidden.
These wolves must have all fallen to Frostbite. Since ancient times, precious swords were meant for heroes, and He Yan considered herself at least somewhat heroic. Seeing such a blade, she couldn’t resist the urge to touch it.
So she stealthily reached back, her fingers brushing—
Suddenly, she felt the body beneath her hand stiffen. He Yan immediately withdrew and cried out, “I didn’t mean to touch your waist! I just wanted to feel your sword!”
After a long pause, a voice laced with suppressed anger came from behind her. “You could choose not to speak.”
“If I don’t speak, I’ll die of boredom,” He Yan retorted. “Commander, you really don’t need to be so stern.” She continued, “Look, you killed all these wolves but didn’t take them with you. In the end, the foxes in these mountains will get the spoils. Forget the meat—the pelts alone are top quality. The one I killed had its fur ruined, only good for boots. But the ones you killed have intact pelts, perfect for a cloak. Though, a wolfskin cloak might not suit you—your usual attire is far more luxurious. Why not let me have them? With a wolfskin cloak in winter, I could roll around in the snow.”
Xiao Jue seemed momentarily dizzied by her rambling, yet he still responded, though his tone was far from pleasant. With a mocking curl of his lips, he said, “No wonder you clung to that dead wolf in the pit—you really do love wolf pelts.”
“Not really, I was just freezing,” He Yan shook her head. “The Commander values cleanliness and can’t stand the stench of beasts staining his clothes. We’re different—I’ve not only clung to dead wolves, I’ve even slept in piles of corpses.”
Silence lingered behind her before Xiao Jue asked, “When?”
“When I was little. I barely remember now.” He Yan gazed up at the stars. “Back then, it was about survival. A pile of corpses was just a pile of corpses—after all, I was the only one who walked out of it alive.”She expected Xiao Jue to press for details and had already prepared a fabricated story, but to her surprise, he didn’t pursue the matter, leaving her rehearsed explanations unused.
He Yan’s thoughts drifted back to the past.
It was shortly after she first arrived at Mo County when a squad of new recruits from the Pacify Yue Army encountered the Qiang people at the edge of the desert.
They were all fresh soldiers, inexperienced in combat, relying solely on raw courage. But that courage was quickly shattered by the Qiang’s brutality. In the end, the entire squad was annihilated.
He Yan had also suffered severe injuries but miraculously survived. She hid beneath the corpses of her comrades, barely clinging to life. The Qiang set the bodies ablaze before departing. At that moment, He Yan truly believed her fate was sealed—she would die in that desert.
Yet heaven refused to let her perish. A sudden rain extinguished the flames on the corpses. Too weak to move and too afraid to make a sound, she didn’t even dare to cry.
The boys who had joked with her just the day before now lay motionless as corpses. The elder brother who had scolded her that morning was already headless. Lying amidst the severed limbs and broken bodies, she experienced the true cruelty of war for the first time. Surrounded by the dead, breathing in the metallic scent of blood, she wept silently through the night, her eyes wide open.
At dawn, a passerby came upon the scene. He buried all the bodies where they lay, giving them a proper resting place, and discovered He Yan, barely alive, saving her in the process.
In the years that followed, He Yan often reflected on how, though she had lived as a man in the capital, she had never been truly strong—always leaving herself an escape route in her heart. But after that night, she rarely allowed herself such luxuries. She was no delicate maiden; no one would wipe her tears on the battlefield. The only thing that mattered was surviving each life-or-death struggle.
Survival came first, always. To survive, what did it matter if she had to lie beside wolf carcasses? If necessary, she could even eat raw wolf meat to stay alive.
But Xiao Jue would likely never understand.
A soft sigh escaped He Yan’s lips. Now, she truly began to feel the chill.
The young man before her was clad in black robes and armor, his cloak warding off the cold. Afraid of dirtying his clothes, she dared not lean back too far, yet she couldn’t help but look up at him. From this angle, she could just make out the elegant line of his jaw.
Xiao Jue was undeniably handsome—a fact He Yan had to concede, both in her past life and this one. His beauty was both refined and heroic, his demeanor graceful yet aloof, carrying an effortless charm that was subtly tantalizing.
His most striking feature was his eyes—clear as autumn water, cool and detached, as if nothing in the world could leave an impression. It made one wonder what tenderness might lie within them if they ever truly focused on someone.
She recalled the hand he had extended to her in the pit, and the phrase “fingers slender as bamboo shoots, eyes clear as autumn ripples” came unbidden to her mind. It suited him perfectly, she thought.
No wonder he bore the epithet “Jade-Faced Commander.” The thought rankled her slightly—both were young generals, yet he was called “Jade-Faced Commander” while she was stuck with “Masked General.” If she had removed her mask back then, perhaps she might have earned a title like “Military Adonis” or something equally flattering.She was lost in her own thoughts, unaware that she was alternating between admiring Xiao Jue's face with sighs of appreciation and sighing dejectedly in frustration—like a madwoman. To Xiao Jue, it all seemed utterly baffling.
And rather foolish.
(End of Chapter)
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